More info about the making of the film here: https://www.dominicjacksonfilms.com/polar

It is a drama comedy about substance abuse, mental health and not fitting in. If you enjoy it please share the link and please leave a review on IMDB and AMAZON we really need it as we hardly have any!

Thanks so much for your time if your get to watch it I hope you like it, it is available at higher resolution and without the stamp in the corner for a low cost, the money will be used to keep the film production moving forward and possibly making another feature!

It is on Reelhouse.org and Amazon UK and USA.

Thank so much hope you enjoy and please subscribe to us on youtube I will be making more videos about the making of Polar and other similar stuff.

Regards, Dom.

I have already MXL FR-300 but I'm pretty disappointed with it. When I boost gain enough so that I can pick sounds with high sensitivity from 1,5m - 2m, there is a lot self-noise in the signal.

To ensure that there wasn't problem with e.g. my cables, I did another test with Electro-Voice RE50 and there was absolutely zero noise. I know this is different mic since it's dynamic but atleast it proves that the connections are not the reason.

At http://www.dvcreators.net/shotgun-shootout/ there is good comparison between shotgun microphones. It seems that there is really big differences between mic self-noises. E.g. AUDIO TECHNICA AT897 has pretty loud noise, I'd say that sound clip is unusable. But e.g. SENNHEISER MKH-416 has virtually no noise at all and the tone in her voice is excellent.

I don't understand why anyone would buy e.g. AUDIO TECHNICA AT897 ? Is that much self-noise really acceptable to someone?

Anyway I'd like to get some recommendations about shotgun microphones. Based on the test above MKH-416 is a winner for me but that test doesn't cover everything. Requirements:

• Low self-noise
• Can pick sound from 1,5 - 2m away
• Good tone
• Price range <1000$

Panasonic GH3: $625 Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 mkI: $250

Selling from Los Angeles. CONUS with shipping fee included

highest possible careful tweaked settings for very high image quality with enough stability for short takes up to 5 - 8 minutes.

Improved for best low light noise and textures in all modes, perfect for high iso, and excelent image texture in good light.

Arri Alexa image quality inside the GH2, (just missing the Alexa dynamic range of course)

default version:

*SH and H slots are better for good light in low iso and for more detailed scenes in good light

*SH slot is higher quality and more stable with manual focus legacy lenses

*H slot more stable with native lenses with electronic contacts

*H slot also better for use with image stabilization

*hbr is better in good light than in low light

*default version is more stable in SH and H 720p and in HBR than the boson version

*24p 24H and 24L are the same of boson

*great quality in all modes

boson version:

*SH slot improved for low light textures and noise

*H slot better for good light in low iso, better for more complex details scenes in good light

*H slot is more stable for native lenses

*HBR does the low light / good light balance automaticaly for better noise in low light or better detail in good light

*24p has same noise quality in both good light or low light for constant image texture this keeps same random noise in all light conditions, good for intercut with SH

*a little less stable in 720p and HBR than the default version

*best quality in all modes

seta = workhorse default

setb = workhorse boson

setc = workhorse default lower datarate in SH and H for more stability in 720p and hbr

setd = workhorse boson lower datarate in SH and H for more stability in 720p and hbr

sete = same as seta, but the 24H and 24L are optimized to deliver sharpest image for steady complex detail scenes, it does the automatic adaptation in 24p for low light noise or good light steady complex detail scenes

setf = same as setc, but the 24H and 24L are optimized to deliver sharpest image for steady complex detail scenes, it does the automatic adaptation in 24p for low light noise or good light steady complex detail scenes

all tests performed in NTSC with the Sandisk 32GB SDHC Class 10 U1 45Mbps card.

transcode the original mts files to Apple ProRes 422 full range using the 5DtoRGB free software before editing to avoid the diagonal pattern rain problem. Try the ProRes HQ, normal and LT versions to perceive the best balance between quality/file size.

as of september 05 2014 all versions are modified flowmotion 2.02 with extensive careful tweaking

please donate to www.personal-view.com

I did some research in the forum about PTools settings but I did not find the answers I need...

What happens is:

Only GOP which works good for 720p 60p are GOP 30 and GOP 3, all other GOP gives diagonal pattern (rain) in computer monitor. But the GOP 3 in 720p always stops recording and it seems the card is not the problem, I am using Sandisk 45mbps and other people says the Sandisk 95mbps also stops recording in 720p hacks... The GOP 6, 12 and 15 works for some shoots, but they are unstable (sometimes stops recording) and gives diagonal pattern (rain) in computer monitor. GOP 3 stops recording all the time, no matter the bitrate (I tested GOP 3 from 40 to 200mbps). So GOP 30 is the only option.

Problem is: when using the GOP 30 the camera encoder always keeps the bitrate very low when the camera is quiet, when there is no motion in the image, and this gives lots of macroblocking and texture lost in low light. Even when I set the bitrate to 48mbps or 64mbps in PTools the camera does not record 48mbps or 64mbps, StreamParser shows only around 23mbps... (for static low light shoots)

The auto quantizer all to motion or all to details did not make any difference. So I did some try to change settings in TESTER options of PTools. I fount the TOP and BOTTOM bitrate limits and I enabled it with 48000 and 42000 for top and bottom 720p, but this makes no effects in encoding, bitrate is still very low for static shots no matter the bitrate I type in PTools...

Only thing I found to make the bitrate encoding keep high is the GOP 3, but camera stops recording in all 720p shoots, the GOP 3 just works for 1080p.

So I am wondering if there is a way to keep the bitrate high using GOP 30 in 720p...

Any suggestion welcome, thanks.

http://www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Compare/Side-by-side/Nikon-D5200-versus-Nikon-D7000___850_680

Im looking to shoot concerts with it, (as the one of the cameras along side my 'camcorders' as part of a multicam set up) so need as higher quality and good low light performance, as about a hour's worth of footage would fit onto that card. (if that makes senses as most the gigs i work are no longer than a hour in length) 24/25fps in 1080i/p (i'm indifferent as i know what im asking is already very specific)

I know nothing of GOP or anything technical, so try keep your advise dumbed down for me please haha

Any help would be greatly apprecated,

All my Best:

Wil Henry Silent Syndicate Productions

==MY TEST==

I went on a shoot this weekend, and was using Sandisk Extreme 16gb 30mb/s cards. I wanted to ensure both spanning and playback in camera for the shoot, so I went with driftwoods "spanmybitchup" patch. I did just a few short preliminary tests: the test I did was to shoot the papasarts star chart (which I've attached--I also attached the more extreme codec test chart v2 2010), and let it run. I waved my hand around in the frame from time to time and also had some talking to get audio. Everything seemed good: I was getting spanning and smooth playback in camera with audio. (EDIT: also attaching Stray's death charts with color information!)

==MY SHOOT==

So during the shoot, after a few shots, I was getting the message "motion image cannot be played" for all my clips (or something like that I don't remember exactly)--my heart sunk! An actor asked me to check to see if we recorded something on a previous take, I had to say that "yes it was" without checking. I was worried about requests for playback--and this was only with one actor: imagine this on shoot with clients! For certain shots, I wanted to be sure that something was recorded since I wasn't at the camera, and I couldn't do this. The scene I was shooting was an actor in a car at night--he was lit and most everything else was dark. That's when I got the messages. I put in a new Sandisk card, and formatted it. Reshot the same scene and I was getting the same error.

==LESSONS==

1) In camera playback is important at least for some of us, and for some, like me, it is even more important than low gop. For me, I am willing to forego a very very high quality low GOP setting (awesome work driftwood!!) that doesn't have playback in camera on good SD cards for an improved long GOP with ultra reliable in camera playback. I'm NOT saying that everyone wants this or should want it (especially if you have the cash for more super high end SD cards or for extra harddrive space). But I'm guessing some people are in my situation as well.

2) It seems there's a relatively standard procedure for patch development (using streamparser, tweaking settings incrementally, etc etc). BUT there seems to be no standard procedure for testing spanning and in-camera playback. You might not think that makes a difference, but it seems that it does: it seems to matter what you shoot when you are testing things like spanning and in-camera playback. Or, at least the number of clips you shoot or the ISO you shoot at makes a difference: otherwise, I don't know how to explain the divergence between my pre-shoot tests and what happened on the shoot. I welcome some constructive thinking about standardizing spanning and camera playback tests.

==DESIRES==

The ideal for me would be to get a hack that improves quality over the stock settings, that has very very reliable spanning and in-camera playback with audio, and works on good quality cards like the Sandisck 30 mb/s (16gb). I know some people are getting the SandDisk extreme pro 64gb cards... but a lot of people (like me) already have a stash of good quality cards and don't want to fork over even more money to get these super high end cards.

I did test w/ @cbrandin 's (Chris's) 66M patch. We know that this doesn't span (but getting around 10 or 11 minutes is okay for me, although I'd love spanning). But what I did notice is that I couldn't get in camera playback with this either. I'm going to try the 44M patch.

Thoughts?

Random fun test with GH2, Olympus 38mm 1.8 and Sedna AQ1 at 2am in Silverlake after a film shoot.

Graded in Colorista II

@rajamalik @thepalalias @Benibube thank you for the comments guys. @cjdincer

rajamalik, @coors thanks for testing the setting(s) guys; rajamalik Congratulations for your little b...

Releasing the setting, after very long time working on it, the name and some info see 1st alinea:

I know it was/is a challenge (AQ4 and Q8 in the same setting) for most detailed and lower compression setting and want everything constant bitrate-style and rajamalik asking for the most detailed one every time but here is the release of the "OBS AQ4-Q8 161M-setting exTReme-KAYSERI A-GraDetail" setting, the setting shows (due to using lower compression in the setting, but I believe so you see more), maybe say high ISO, a little bit more noise/maybe artifacts, I did not used 3rd party matrix, but the goal is to get every bit (in this situation pixel) what GH2 is seeing/recording, out of it and see everything yourself when playing back and in post too, and cbr-style bitrates too; (do the rest/editing in post).

Okay it's logical to say when you have an very detailed and low compression setting, on high ISO you see some more noise/artifact etc. but you get everyhing out of the gh2 I believe. But I believe, if an "matrix master" can make a matrix especially for this or similar setting then we get an setting with some reduced noise/artifacts directly on the sd-card itself. But matrix by the way is a subjective matter therefor it is up to you to judge or not judge things by matrix way but settings way. And I did not used third party matrix for the setting.

But, on the other hand: maybe there will be enthousiat users to get/shot/capture, you name it, this way and do rest in post, I think and believe it is maybe some personal taste and this setting is on paper very good for low detailed scenes or for someone always looking for it or exactly want details and seeing that little bit more.

The setting gives you constant bitrate-style bitrates and for example 720p50 give you around 100Mbit-range bitrates, this is high in comparison with some other gop-1 720p50 settings/ and some of the other gop-1 720p setting are not working reported earlier by others I though. Don't forget 1080iFSH(50) is available too and also to try for slow motion with deinterlacing in post for 1080p50, maybe this setting is better then other 1080i also, who knows. (This is for some of you as a fan of deinterlacing 1080i to 1080p50 in post, instead of 720p50 give a try too.)

Suggestion: Maybe, from scratch, a matrix master or a matrix maker can make a matrix to also temper some noise/artifacts, high ISO etc. especially for this setting, but also this setting is for people who get the most details out of gh2 and loves to do things in post...

Setting itself, "OBS AQ4-Q8 161M-setting exTReme-KAYSERI A-GraDetail":

(for me unbelievable to let the setting work with AQ4 and Q8 in the same setting at the same time, "All to detail and low compression" at a such high setting, especially when you know that settings for some mode influences the other mode, but I've got them work together for:)

• working (/or say, I tested) for the modes => 1080p24H, 720p50SH, HBR, 1080iFSH(50), 80%24L but, with such high bitrate setting it was not easy to get, all the modes above, working
• for all the modes I've written above, constant i-frames-style (+ b-frames for 720p50), cibf-style, except for 80%24L though it has high i-frames between around 360KB to max around 780KB, average around 600KB, and constant bitrate-style, cbr-style, for all the modes I've written above too, (including for 80%24L mode)
• tested with manual lens, (auto-lens check for yourself)
• there is a time-limit 3:45min but every mode is working for me with my setup (sd card and manual lens), so recording and also in cam playback available for, maybe including but not limited to (does mean other modes such as 720p60 needs testing, test for your country, I tested the PAL), the modes from above
• sandisk 8GB SDHC 95Mbits/s card

some bitrates I've got during testing, setting for 1080p24 is high to the 150M range, but see others very good ones: - 720p50 100M (for slo-mo see 1080i fsh(50) mode too, for using deinterlacing in post) - 1080i FSH (50i) 100M (especially for people who want 1080p slow motion with deinterlacing) - HBR 100M (I think very good one for hbr) - 80% 24L 100M

here is the setting as .zip file attached

El Mariachi was shot for just under $7000 and that was film costs plus a few hundred for miscellaneous expenses. The reasons he did it so cheap was:

1. He had a partner in his star Carlos Gallardo. They were childhood friends and both had a passion for making movies. Carlos had the town they shot in wired. He knew everybody and he was from a well off family. So he could get his folks employees free as extras or henchmen. He got the hotel, the bus, the turtle, the dog, his apartment, etc... At least $20-30k of production value free because he was able to talk people into giving it away for free. You need a partner or partners who can get stuff free.

2. Rodriquez wrote the script with everything free in mind. He knew he had those items and he'd been to the town before many times so he could write the script based on what he had avaliable. If you don't got it, don't put it in the script. They say write what you know. Write what you HAVE also.

3. The most important thing that never gets mention is Rodriquez already had 10 years filmmaking experience prior to shooting El Mariachi. He would make short films on Beta or VHS with his family. He had around 9 brothers and sisters so he got them to be in his short films. He recorded on video and edited on two VCRs hitting pause and play and rec. This taught him how to pre-visualize and edit in his head so he would know which shots to get and what he didn't need. A vital skill when you can only do one take.

Now Primer:

Primer is a better example to first time filmmakers as I believe the writer, director, star Shane Carruth had zero prior movie making experience. BUT, he was an engineer so he knew he needed lots of pre-planning.

1. He went to every location he had and shot 35mm film stills with various stocks until he got a look he liked then went to the local film distributor and asked how he could emulate that look on 16mm. They like what he did and his vision and helped him out and gave him a discount. EDIT: I also believe the preshoots were designed to find film stocks he could use with the natural light available since he had no crew or wouldn't be able to add lights to the locations.

2. Like El Mariachi everything was one take because more takes cost more money. He rehearsed and rehearsed and only shot what he needed. Something unnecessary in the digital age, at least until some of the GOP1 hacks started coming out. ^_^

3. Like Rodriquez he only put in the script stuff, locations and actors he could get for free. His house, his job, wife, friends, family, etc... He did get some actors through regular auditions, like his co-star, and the reason they wanted to be in it was the script was so good they didn't care it was free. Write a good script and people will do it for free.

Now Clerks

Shot for just under $30k, it's still a good example of what to do and what not to do. It shares a lot of the same things as listed above. He had the store. He had his friends and he got actors to work for free because they loved the script. So I'll list the main problem imho. Multiple takes. He wanted the acting a certain way and he wanted long takes so any error and they had to start again. This caused multiple takes of almost every scene. A no-no in the film age, but not as big a deal in Digital.

So in closing the main points are, you either need a great script that attracts people willing to work for nothing or you need a partner/s who can get stuff free. Yes...sadly I have neither at the moment....sob.

Let's start with Popatopolis. A doc about veteran B-Movie maker Jim Wynorski. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0691061/ He's made over 70 films, some with titles like "Bare Wench Project", "The Da Vinci Coed", and the classic "The Return of Swamp Thing". This time he's making a move called, "The Witches of Breastwick" and he's trying to do it in 3 days. We can all take some lessons from him, especially his casting choices. ^_^

Next let's go underage and gory! A 12 year old girl decided to make a zombie movie. Zombie Girl: The Movie This follows the multi-year journey of young Emily Hagins and her desire to make a full length zombie feature. Great flick and you can learn a lot from seeing the problems she encounters along the way.

And finally we go overseas to the heart of Africa with Welcome to Nollywood. Did you know that Nigeria has the third largest movie industry, IN THE WORLD?!?! You could almost believe this is a mocumentary, but no way could anybody write fiction like this.

I am shooting on the Voigtlander 25 mm f0.95. I've tried several shots, insight and outsight. I've noticed that in some parts the dark areas were absolutely clear, no noise at all, but in some where were. I've keep ISO between 320 - 640, f0.95.

How do I get, even if there is less light, the most best possible result - here a clean picture? Do I have to raise ISO in order ta achieve better results? (Sensor need more light sensitvity to bring out details, can you shoot on too low ISO?) I always thought: lower IS0 value= better picture quality.

How do you handle night shoots, any tricks? Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks, Alex